Awakened From Strange Dreams
by Gail Lucinda Autor
Summary: A small green dragon wakes with hardly any memory. A young girl has dreams she can't explain of fantasical races. What are their roles in the plans of dragon, fain, and ix? Only time-and this story-will tell.
1. Chapter 1: Awake

She could never remember much. There wasn't much to remember. A deep, deep sleep, into which the little dragon couldn't remember falling.

She wished she could. But the fact was, when she woke up that first morning, Gail could not remember a thing.

Light pulsed against her eyelids and she opened them, feeling warm and sleepy. It was nice to feel warm. Warmth felt good. It reminded her of something. Poor Gail just wished she could remember what. She felt herself smiling slightly. That felt good, too. All the warmth and good feelings made her open her eyes.

She looked around quietly, blinking her eyes. She was perched on a windowsill, facing a large window, in which she could see her reflection. Her eyes flared violet, and they went with her green scales nicely, she decided. She yawned gently, stretching her wings. It felt good to stretch her wings.

Gail glanced around. The room she was in was small, with a dark mahogany four-poster in one corner, an ebony desk on one side of the window, and a similar bookshelf on the other. She shuffled her feet, moving around to get a better look. Two of the walls were purple, a slightly paler shade than her eyes, while the other two were a pretty turquoise. The room was pretty and colorful. Gail decided she liked colorful.

A noise was coming from one of the walls, where she noticed a white door. The door had a poster with words on it, written in colorful ink. Someone was walking towards the door with the colorful words, she realized. She turned back towards the window and froze solid instinctively just as the knob turned and a girl walked into the room.

She was a pretty girl, Gail decided as she watched her reflection in the window. Gail liked her at once. She had pretty smooth skin and pretty dark hair and pretty brown eyes and pretty blue glasses. Gail stood still as the girl picked up a laptop, sat at the ebony desk, and began typing. Gail couldn't see the message in the window's reflection, but after several long moments of clicking keys, the girl lifted the laptop from the desk and scooted over in a rolling chair to the windowsill where Gail perched.

"Enjoying the sunlight, Gail?" the girl smiled. "Here's my new story. See what you think."

She didn't hold it up for long, and the language wasn't dragontongue, Gail knew. But the words weren't so hard to read and Gail picked up a few of them, including _dragon_ and _hrrr _and _Fain. _All familiar words, even the latter, though she wasn't sure what it meant yet.She also caught another word: _Laurel. _It was pretty, like the girl, andGail decided that it must be the girl's name.

Laurel took the laptop back to the desk, but she took Gail with her this time, placing her beside the keyboard to watch. She typed for a long time and Gail didn't read all of it, but she could read more than she had before.

_Dreams I Can't Explain_

_It doesn't make sense. None of it does. The dreams come every night, and they're not always the same. But they're always about the same things: dragons that say _hrr_ and strange, not quite real creatures that the dragons have told me are called the Fain._

_There's really only one dragon who talks to me. He's a male dragon, and he's purple. I giggled the first time I saw him, but he said, "Laurel, I'll have you know purple is a very significant color in a male dragon." It sounds funny, but it's very dignified, really. It's a good color for him. He introduced himself to me as a ci:pherel, which is a reader. A reader of emotions and stuff like that. It's hard to explain. I can't be certain, but I think he told me his name is G'leareth. It's interesting; he's different from Gail, but their eyes are shaped the same way. Except for one thing-his are violet._

_G'leareth comes to me about every night. He's told me loads of stuff, like the that the Fain were here a long time ago and used the Earth to raise dragons as hosts. Not hosts, exactly. They didn't control them; they _comingled. _That's another one of G'leareth's words; two beings joining together on a higher consciousness for the greater good of them both. It doesn't make sense, all of what G'leareth says, but I do know who the bad guys are: a race of the Fain called the ix. The ix don't commingle; they control, and they want to destroy humans and dragons and everything else. The way G'leareth talks all the time, it's hard to understand much more than the basic good guy/bad guy stuff. I wonder if all dragons are such big-picture people._

_I'm still not sure what my role in all this is, either. I just hope he tells me. I just hope I find out soon. _

There was more, but that was all Gail got to read, because just then Laurel closed the laptop. She lifted the little green dragon carefully and placed her back on the windowsill to watch the sun, which was floating lazily higher. Laurel kissed her dragon, then slipped out of the room.

Gail unfroze and frowned at her reflection, wondering why she didn't remember anything before this morning. She sighed, blowing a tiny smoke ring. Laurel's story was strange. The story made her think. Why couldn't she remember anything? Was there anything to remember?

Gail was sure of a few things: She was a dragon, her name was Gail, she belonged to a girl, and, evidently, she had a role to play in "all this". And, like Laurel, she hoped she would find out what it was soon. 


	2. Chapter 2: A Visitor

Gail spent the morning perched quietly on her windowsill, blowing a smoke ring now and then and sighing. She thought a lot that day. But no matter where her thoughts wandered, they always returned to Laurel's story. At last she glanced around furtively and fluttered over to the ebony desk in the corner.

She walked around the laptop a few times, frowning and blowing the occasional smoke ring. Finally she gripped the top of it firmly and struggled to force it open.

The computer didn't budge. Gail backed off in a huff and made several more fruitless efforts before returning to her windowsill, considerably discouraged. She was sure that the words on the screen would tell her much more of what she wanted to know-or at least entertain her for a few hours. She sighed and gazed at her glum reflection in the windowpane, making faces at herself in her moments of boredom.

She got up and made a few more tries at the laptop. At last, by grabbing the lid a certain way and bracing herself against the desktop, she could force it open just enough to slide her arms under it and force it open wide enough to crouch beneath it and shove it open. After several long minutes of harsh labor, the little clay dragon had finally opened the laptop. Now what had Laurel done once it was open?

Tentatively she touched a sizeable white square beneath the rows of keys. The screen, which had been dark, jumped to life. Gail, pleased with herself, _hrr_ed softly in delight. Now, how would she get the words to appear?

A small box containing a picture of a kitten appeared against the blue screen, which was covered with pretty designs. Gail touched the square again and watched a small object on the screen jump. She touched it again, but this time left her paw on longer, moving it slightly. The object, which was shaped like an arrow, jumped towards the box. Gail, feeling by now that she had gone where no dragon had gone before, continued to move the small arrow towards the kitten. When at last the arrow hovered over the kitten, Gail looked around for something else to do. She pressed a few of the keys experimentally.

Nothing happened.

Blowing a disappointed smoke ring, Gail looked a little closer. The arrow-square had two small rectangles above it. Gail pushed one. It didn't go down as easily as the keys, but finally there was a sharp _click. _Gail stumbled backwards and the kitten vanished.

A second box appeared on the screen. It was white. Above it was a word written in human scribbles, the same ones that were on the keys and in Laurel's diary. She squinted for a second. _Password. _What was a password? Gail thought for a second. She tried pressing the click-key again (a little more cautiously this time) and a blinking line appeared in the white box. She tilted her head to the side, frowning slightly. What about the scribble-keys, the word-pieces? Gail crept forward and poked one.

A small black dot appeared in the box. Gail, giddy with delight, began striking the word-pieces left and right, hitting them randomly. Suddenly the box vanished and then reappeared with more words beside it. Gail squinted at them.

_Did you forget your password?_

_Hrr! _Gail snorted. _How can you forget what you never knew in the first place?_

Paws heavy with disappointment, Gail spent several more minutes struggling with the lid of the laptop. At last, at last, the hateful thing was closed. Gail sighed and prepared to fly back to the windowsill.

She froze, unable to believe her violet eyes. The window was open. And up on the sill was a creature who resembled her reflection; green scales, violet eyes, leathery wings. Another dragon! Another dragon sat up on her windowsill, beckoning her to join it.

Gail spread her wings and hurried to her perch, where she landed beside the beckoning dragon. This close, she saw that the creature she had thought almost a reflection of herself, while very similar, was not like her at all.

Firstly, the dragon who stood before her was completely and distinctly male. And second, he carried two strange objects in his right paw: a notepad and pencil.

The dragon was very open and polite. He introduced himself to Gail as Gadzooks, then asked if she had any questions.

_Yes, _Gail hrred. _Why can't I remember anything before today? And what is a password? _(She pronounced it pass-word, with a very distinct accent on the hyphen.)

_You can't remember anything before today because there was nothing to remember, _Gadzooks replied, not unkindly. _Before this morning, you were nothing but a pretty lump of clay. Now you have been animated. And now you are alive. _

Gail did not miss the small compliment in the sentence, but it didn't help so much. _Who animated me? Why did they do it?_

_The great ice dragon, G'Oreal, leader of the Wearle of the Polar Ice Cap, is the one who animated you. You are made from the clay that makes up the body of the earth. G'Oreal was able to animate you by tapping into the Fire Eternal-the heart of the Earth-through the Earth Mother, Gaia. He animated you because, as you saw-_he gestured to the laptop, making Gail cringe-_the human Laurel has been exploring in her dreams. It surprised G'leareth as much as anyone else when she appeared. We need a dragon eye on her._

Gail frowned. Gaia? Earth Mother? Wearle? Fire Eternal? How could words she couldn't possibly remember seem so familiar?

_It's in your blood, so to speak, _Gadzooks explained, as if reading her mind. _You are a dragon. You have knowledge of these things, even if you might not know it. In time, you will come to understand it all. Dragons, as Laurel guessed, are very "big-picture people". _

Gail nodded. _Where did I come from? Why wasn't I animated before? _

_A potter called Liz Pennykettle, an old friend of mine, and my maker as well, created you. She shares the blood of Gawain, one of the dragons who walked this Earth in the Before Times. She possesses the power to animate her creations using something known as icefire. But you weren't one to be animated at the time. Don't blame her; she had no idea of your destiny. You were sold at an artists' market to your girl, Laurel here. And you've been here ever since._

Gail nodded slowly.

_Any other questions? _Gadzooks _hrr_ed politely.

_No. I guess I'll learn more later, _Gail responded, just as politely. She guessed Gadzooks, however he had come to be there, was headed elsewhere as well.

_Good,_ Gadzooks smiled. _Before I go, I have a gift for you. David had Lucy-Liz's daughter-and Gwendolen-her dragon-make it for you. _

_David? _Gail started to ask. But before the _hrr _had actually formed, Gadzooks had produced a strange, flat object that resembled the top part of Laurel's laptop from beneath a wing. The word _David _turned into the words _What is it?_

_It's called a tablet. It's like the computer Laurel used for her diary, _Gadzooks explained. _You can use it to communicate with us. Here, _he said, scribbling on his notepad. He ripped off the top sheet and handed it to her. Written on it was an e-mail address: 

Gail frowned. _What's this?_

Gadzooks took the tablet from her and showed her how to turn it on and helped her set up a dragonmail account. (_So that's what a pass-word is! _Gail exclaimed._)_

_We can use the e-mails to communicate, _Gadzooks explained. _This is David's e-mail. _He held up the paper._ Type him a message, maybe even one of Gail's diary entries, then hit send, and-_he tapped the screen with a flourish-_it goes right to David. _

_I get it, _Gail _hrred _thoughtfully. _Interesting._

_Very, _Gadzooks agreed. _Remember to keep it under your wing and don't let Laurel see it. Okay?_

Gail bobbed her head. _Just one more thing, _Gail said.

Gadzooks turned. _What? _

_Who's David? _she asked.

Gadzooks chuckled, blowing smoke from his nostrils. _You'll find that out soon enough. Enjoy that tablet. There are some pretty fun games on there._

_If I can figure it out, I will. _Gail watched him as he hopped to the window. They waved at each other, and then Gadzooks flew away.


	3. Chapter 3: The Second Riser

**Author's note: Wow! Thanks for the reviews! I was hoping for a few more...but I'm still quite gratified. :) Very, VERY special thanks goes to Hawkpath of RiverClan, an amazing person who was even concerned enough to pm me about the progress of the story! Imagine that. Hawky, you are awesome. This one's for you, since you asked. **

Ch. 3

Gail was not alone in her sudden animation. Several other dragons woke around the same time as her.

Graphic woke standing motionless and feeling extremely silly. He was holding a small canvas in one paw, head cocked as if studying it. In his teeth he clutched a fat paintbrush dipped in red, and in the other paw he held an artist's palette dotted with neat blobs of color. He was crouched on a cluttered desk in a small room among containers of paint, boxes of colored pencils, and jars filled with brushes, pencils, pastels, markers, and other artist's implements. Papers were stacked all around him, and a few canvases were propped up against shelves teeming with art supplies.

A boy with shaggy blond hair, pale skin, rosy cheeks, and blue eyes sat at the desk. He was bent contemplatively over a paper, a purple pencil held in his hand, lightly adding shadow to whatever he was drawing. Graphic held his breath and dared to lean forward slightly to get a better look, jerking back and freezing solid when the boy held the picture up for his inspection.

"What do you think, Graphic?" the boy asked. The picture was marvelous, and had Graphic not been in his solid pose, he would've gasped.

A lovely icy blue female dragon-Graphic could tell by the pattern of the scales, back spines, and eye ridges-sat in a smooth snow bank, the aurora borealis dancing overhead reflected in her violet eyes. Her neck was arched in a dignified manner, and her tail curled around her dainty paws as she lifted her head to watch the sky. _Glorious, _Graphic thought. But he didn't dare move or say anything.

He did notice one more thing, however. Written in graceful, curling letters in the lower right hand corner was the word _G'Kira, _and below that, in smaller letters, _Rance Fording. _So the drawing showed a dragon named G'Kira, and it had been done by a boy named Rance Fording. That was the boy at the desk; his boy. This fact was confirmed when a woman's voice floated into the room: "Rance! Hurry up or you'll miss the bus!"

Rance slid the drawing into a stack, grabbed a bag that was hanging over the chair back, and rushed out the door.

Graphic listened as Rance's footsteps faded away. There was the muted sound of a door opening and closing, and then silence. He waited for several long moments before he unfroze and carefully placed his palette and canvas on the desk, spitting out his paintbrush along with them. Slowly he unfolded his wings and stretched, then set out to explore the forest of art supplies.

His first stop was the stack where Rance had placed G'Kira. Carefully Graphic sifted through the papers until he came to the ice blue she-dragon. He admired the exquisite detail and incredible shading for a few moments before he spotted another drawing. This one showed a purple male dragon looking thoughtful. This one was labeled _G'leareth. _A quick inspection showed that every paper in the fairly thin stack had a drawing of a dragon. Some were of the same dragons in different poses; Graphic skipped these as he sifted through the pile. The drawings were wild, and Graphic felt as if the violet eyes of each dragon pierced him, seeing straight into his soul. He shivered slightly and set the drawings back down, neatly re-stacking them. He walked back along the cluttered desk, watching his reflection distort in the jars that surrounded him until he reached his art supplies. He picked up his paintbrush and dipped it in a blob of vibrant lime color on his palette.

Glancing around thoughtfully, Graphic found a scrap of paper and began absentmindedly dragging his wet paintbrush around on it. He glanced down at it and jumped; on the paper he had written the words _Who? What? Why? _in brilliant lime green acrylic. He sighed and crumpled the paper, tossing it into an already overflowing trash can beside the desk.

_I can answer those questions, I think, _came a voice from behind, giving Graphic such a fright that he nearly knocked over a jar of paint-swirled water and paintbrushes. Behind him stood a second male dragon, green and looking a lot like him, except for he was holding a notepad and pencil.

_Sorry, _hrred the dragon. _I didn't mean to startle you. _

_I'm Graphic, _said, well, Graphic.

_Yes, I know, _said the strange apparition.

_Who might you be? _asked Graphic.

_I might be a dragon called Gadzooks, _replied the dragon, blowing a thoughtful smoke ring. There was nothing joking in the strange words he spoke, Graphic realized. This dragon was truly odd.

_And what might you be doing here? _Graphic wondered.

_I might be here to answer your questions. Or I might not._

_You might as well answer them_, said the artist, realizing he was still holding his brush.

_I might as well, _agreed the dragon who might be Gadzooks. _You see, Graphic, we need your help. This boy, Rance, is unusual. He is probing, and dragons, as you saw, are flowing in through his brushes and pencils and pastels. The dragons he drew-G'Kira, G'leareth-are true dragons, from a Wearle up north. At one time, Graphic, you were made of clay, and you still are. But now the clay of you is alive, thanks to G'Oreal, the ice dragon of the North. _

_I don't understand, _Graphic said.

_You have been animated, Graphic. G'Oreal tapped into the Fire Eternal through Gaia, the Earth Mother, and brought you to life, _Gadzooks (for it was Gadzooks, sometimes) hrred patiently.

Graphic shook his head as if there was water in his ears, trying to clear his mind.

_The point is, Graphic, _Gadzooks said, _is that we need your help. Rance is an unusual boy, and we need you to watch him for us. Can you do that? _

_I suppose. But how will I let you know when something happens? _Graphic inquired.

_With this. _From beneath a wing the strange dragon pulled a tiny, thin, shiny black box, just the right size to fit into Graphic's palm. He pressed a claw into a small depression and one side of the box lit up. _This is called a 'Smart phone', _Gadzooks explained. He entered a number into the contacts. _That is David's, _he said. _You can talk to him if you press that button, _he added, pointing to an icon on the screen.

_But...how can this 'phone' be smart? _Graphic wondered, examining the iPhone in his paw. _And how can I talk to someone with it? And who is David?_

_It's not really smart. It can just do a lot. In fact..._ Gadzooks took the phone away from him and showed him a few of the apps. (The pair spent almost half an hour playing TapTap.) _It connects to other phones like it, and that's how you talk to someone. And David... _Gadzooks paused.

_Is he human? _Graphic prompted after a long silence.

Gadzooks looked at him, eyes glowing violet.

_Sometimes._

Gadzooks's stare was enough to cause Graphic to glance down at the screen of his iPhone for a moment to get away. And when he looked up, Gadzooks was gone.

Graphic realized there was paint dripping onto the table. Quickly he moved his brush over a piece of paper and mopped the tiny puddles up.

Only then did he realize that the formerly lime green paint had turned the rich, stunning violet of a dragon's eyes.

**Hope you liked it! Whether you did or didn't, REVIEW. I cannot stress this enough. There is no greater comfort than a review, whether it's happy or sad. It would make me so incredibly motivated to get the next chapter out. I'll also be holding a contest for reviewers to submit a dragon name and, if they have one, specialty, as I have no idea who's going to wake up next. Most creative character will be featured in a later chapter.**

**Tschuss! **

**GLA**

**P.S. REVIEW!**


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